"I feel more Japanese because even though I lived in London and Italy, and now I live in New York, my mom was Japanese and I was always with her. I’m learning Chinese at the moment so I’m on Weibo… I can read Chinese, so I’m trying to figure it out."

"I was doing a show for a big Italian house when I was a kid, and they fired me straight after because what I had done was no longer their vision—it had become mine. I treated it like the Nicola Show, but I guess that’s what young people do: ignore other people’s philosophies. Everyone thinks I’ve done great, but it was always a struggle. I have more experience now that I’ve come out the other side, but I still get bored with things too quickly and want to move on to whatever’s newest."

7. Lady Gaga was also the one who persuaded him to go after the Creative Director job at Mugler:

“We were shooting the 'Telephone' video with Beyoncé, and we had all these pieces from the Mugler archive. Then she started wearing them, and I thought it still worked in a pop-culture way. So I wanted to try. I’m not a designer. I’ve always trusted my instincts. She was, like: ‘Go for it. We’ll just do something amazing together.’ ”

"I've been working with Kim Kardashian. For me, she's so important at the moment. I've got this feeling with her, like when I first met Gaga three or four years ago. Kim really excites me, in a different way. She's approachable for girls. Her body's real. She's got an amazing [behind] too. I think we're going to do something very interesting soon. She said she's coming to the show in Paris."

"There’s way too much celebrity in fashion. I don’t really like working with celebrities, so I try to stay away from that whole machine. But of course I have met some incredibly nice and creative people who just happen to be a 'celebrity.'”